(This post needs a title...)

Hello hello, hello! Still here, still kicking about, avoiding the blank page and all that.

A favourite truism of mine (heard as a sample on Ride's "Going Blank Again") goes, "even a stuffed clock tells the right time twice a day." So in that spirit I am blogging again after an extended hiatus.

First, I have an interview for your perusal over at fellow author, Greg Mitchell's page.
A caution for those of a less religious bent that one of the answers gets pretty religious, so bare with me.

Well, I have some questions to answer, I will have a crack at one:

The glorious Justine H. asks: "... How exactly did you come up with the idea for leers? Are leers able to fall in love?And where on the Half-Continent did you come up with such an epicly amazing character as Sebastipole (and his amazingly epic name?!)?!?!"

Well, I think it came first with seeing something that made me think it would be "cool" to put a large box right on someone's face but then have it that instead of impeding their senses it heightened them.

Leers are just people who have soaked their eyes in chemicals to see things not normally possible and are trained in the use of a sthenicon and olphactologue, so as to falling in love, I suppose that is as variable for them as it is for any other soul. I can add, however, that being in relationship with a falseman might be awkward at best or downright frustrating/terrifying as they could always tell if you were speaking the truth or not, so fob-off answers like "Nothing," to the question "What's the matter?" would not work so well.

Sebastipole is actually a misspelling of the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol, made known to me through reading on the Crimean War. I have since figured however that as far as the Half-Continent goes, his name actually comes from the fact that his mother is Baste from Sebastian and his father a Pollard from Pollux (a bit odd to name your child thus, but Sebastipole's upbringing was a cold thing and it is the Half-Continent after all...)

Both Ken and Amanda were asking after the availability of my books in the necessary e-formats, and whether I am all down with it.

Firstly, I believe each publisher in each region (North America, UK, Australia/NZ, each of the European nations etc...) is figuring out how best to provide those formats and what the royalty rates ought to be. So it is happening, but the publishing industry is in a massive bit of flux at the moment as it transforms into the digital.

Am I down with it? Bring it on I say! I am, however, getting rather ticked with "torrent-ing" and otherwise illegal digital thieving of such formats. Sure, I could look at it as free advertising, but consider that if I can't make a living from these tales then I am not going to be able to write any more of them. Grrrr....

And here is a *SMILEY FACE* just to end on a happier note.

(Mr Bryddia, I shall get to questins soon(ish))

Rossamünd Married?! ... or, Questions Answer'd #120302

Actually I have no idea what number of "question answering" this is, but, you know, just having fun...

Alyosha asked a little while back why there seem to be few/no married folks in the MBTs, and I have to admit myself a tad perplexed by this. I too have realised such a (Freudian?) anomaly, and can only think that it is for the same adolescent reason that many spec fic novels deal mostly with the filially/conjugally unattached - it is simpler; no ties, no needed to refer back home to sooth anxious loved ones, just freedom to go and do and be as the adventure proceeds. Having said, I have quite pointedly had Rossamünd writing and "keeping in touch" with Verline, and refer in his thoughts to her and Frans and Pin, have tried (after committing the cliche of all cliches by making him an orphan) to give him filial connections that require tending - for I see Verline and the two one-time foundlingery masters as an ersatz family to our little adventurer.

... Maybe the non-married thing is a product of my own un-married state at the time of beginning MBT (a state happily reversed at this present time!), or the desire that I think many men of Western culture possess/have inherited: to do their growing on their own - but that is a whole can-o'-worms [TM] that I do not want to open here...

After all this, I am hoping/endeavouring to have a main character (yes, at least 1!) who is attached in the matrimonial way, though whether said attachment comes along for the ride is another matter. Anyone have thoughts on this?

An Annony Mouse was wondering: "Will the movie be filmed in Australia?"

To that my answer is unfortunately at this stage brief - I do not know. You all will be among the earliest to know when I do (my wife, close friends etc will probably get to know first, but after that it will be you.... at least that is my intent!)

chana was wondering: "How old is Rossamünd?It's been bugging me incessantly for quite a while now. Since Threnody must be at least fourteen, that would mean Rossamünd would be twelve/thirteen years old? It makes it just a little hard to relate to him."

Well, I have always found the "fact" of his age a slippery one, but for me it floats around 12ish - remembering of course, that he is small for his age. It is a bit odd I suppose that I should be a little hazy on his years, but the fact of his own "entry" into the world are hazy themselves. I hope this makes him a tad easier to know...

Oh, and me, as to that "something more to the olfactory presence of MBT books", is is I who make that happen, sitting in my lounge room with a crate of bottles of specially made book-cologne spraying every page - it is why you have to wait so long for them to come out; I actually finished writing the MBTs years ago, it is the spraying of this literary perfume that takes the time *looks sadly at tired cologne-spraying finger*.